The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1887-07-29
SERMONS OF, THE FUTURE.
REV. DR.. TALMAcE SAYS THEY
WILL BE SHORT.

" Instances OF vicarious Suffering Taken
from Everyday LILO. tbe
THE HAMpToNs, July 24.-The Rev.
T. De Witt Talmage's subject this morn
ing was: Preaching, Teaching and Ex-
hortation,'' and his text: Romans xii,
Z, 8: "Or ministry, let us wait on our
ministering; or he that teacheth, on
teaching; or he that exhorteth, on ex-
hortation."
Before the world is converted the style
of religious discourse will have to be con-
verted You might as well 60 into the
modern Sedan or Gettysburg with bows
and arrows instead of rifles and bomb
shells and parks of artillery, as to expect
to conquer this world for God by the old
styles of exhortation and sermonology.
Jonathan Edwards preached the sermons
most adapted to the age in which he
lived, but if those sermons were preached
now they would divide an audience into
two classes, those sound asleep and those
wanting to 60 home. ~.
But there is religious discourse of the
future-who will preach it I have no
idea, in what part Of the earth it will be
born l have no idea, in which denomina-
tions of Christians it will be delivered !
cannot guess. That discourse or ex-
hortation may be born in the country
meeting house on the banks of the St.
Lawrence. or the Oregon, or the Ohio,
or the Tombigbee, or the Alabama. The
person who shall deliver it may this mo-
ment be in cradle under the shadows
of the Sierra Nevadas, or in New Eng
e. no a. o
of the southern savannas. Or this mo-
ment there may be some young man in
some of our theological sen,inaries, in the
Junior or middle or senior class, shaping
that weapon of power. Or there may
he coming some new baptism of the Holy
Ghost on the churches, 80 that some of
us who now stand in the watch towers
Of Zion, waking to a realization of our
present inefficiency, may preach it our
selves. That coming discourse may not
be fifty years off. And let us pray
God that its arrival may be hastened,
while announce to you what ! think
will be the chief characteristics of that
discourse or exhortation when it does
arrive, and want to make the remarks
of the morning appropriate and suggest
i've to all classes Of Christian workers.
First of all remark, that that future
religious discourse will be full of living
Christ in contradistinction to didactic
technicalities. A discourse may be full
of Christ though hardly mentioning his
name, and q sermon may be empty Of
Christ while every sentence is repetitious
of his titles. The world wants living
Christ, not Christ standing at the head
of formal system of theology, but
Christ who means pardon and sympathy,
and coincidence, and brotherhood, and
life, and heaven. A poor mans Christ.
A rich mans Christ. An overworked
mans Christ. An invalid's Christ. A
farmers Christ. A merchants Christ.
An artisans Christ. An every mans
Christ.
p -symmetrical and fine worded system
of theology is well enough for theological
classes, but it has no more business in a
pulpit than have the technical phrases of
an anatomist or psychologist or ply
sician in the sick room of patient. The
" orld wants help, immediate and world
uplifting, and it will come through dis
course in which Christ shall walk right
down into the immortal soul and take
everlasting possession of it. filling it as
full of light as is this MONDAY armament.
That sermon of exhortation of the flu
ture will not deal with men in the thread
bare illustrations of JESUS Christ. In
that coming address there will be in
stances Of vicarious suffering taken right
out Of everyday life, for there is not a
day somebody is not dying for others.
AS the physician saving his diphtheritic
patient by sacrificing his own life; as the
ship captain going down with his vessel,
while he is getting his passengers into the
lifeboat; as the fireman consuming in the
burning building while he is taking
child out of four story window; as in
summer the strong swimmer at East
Hampton, or Long Branch, or Cape
May, or Lake George, himself persisted
the newspaper boy one summer, sup
porting his mother for some years, his
invalid mother, when offered by q gen.
tleman fifty cents to get some especial
paper, and he got it, and rushed up in
his anxiety to deliver it, and was crushed
under the wheels of the train, and lay on
the grass with only strength enough to
say: "Oh, what will become of my poor
sick mother now?'
Vicarious suffering. The world is full
of it. An engineer said to me on loco
motive in Dakota: 1--WE men seem to be
coming to better appreciation than we
used to. Did you see that account the
other day of an engineer who to save his
passengers stuck to his place, and when
he was found dead in the locomotive,
which was upside down, he was found
still smiling, his hand on the air brake?'
And as the engineer said it to me, he put
his hand on the air brake to illustrate
his meaning, and looked at him and
thought: "You would be just as much
of hero in the same crisis. !"
Oh, in that religious discourse of the |
future there win be living illustrations
taken out from everyday life Of vicarious
suffering illustrations that will bring to |
mind the ghastlier sacrifice of Him who
in the high places of the field, on the
cross, fought our battles, and wept our
griefs, and endured our struggle, and
died our death.
A German sculptor made an image of
Christ, and he asked his little child, Q